


Shrinking Potions, Silk Scarves, and A Dollhouse

by Onecelestialbeing



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Dirty Talk, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Gen, Oral Sex, Potions, Shrinking, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-15
Updated: 2013-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-29 11:53:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1005113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onecelestialbeing/pseuds/Onecelestialbeing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And not necessarily in that order. Nothing but a bit of snarky fluffy and a lot of THOSE moments (nudge nudge, wink wink). Takes place eight years post-Hogwarts with a very much adult Hermione and our favourite snappy Severus. One-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shrinking Potions, Silk Scarves, and A Dollhouse

"Damn it, woman! Are you ever going to clear out this hovel of a bedroom?"  
  
A series of crashes, bangs, and then loud swearing had sent Hermione running from the kitchen where she had been preparing lunch, to the back of her house. The sound had been so loud and startled her so suddenly that she hadn't bothered with putting down the knife she'd been buttering bread with, and she was still holding it as well as a tea towel when she took flight. But the sight of a very put-out Severus Snape, lying sprawled on his back like a turtle that had been placed on its rounded shell, among a pile of boxes and folded laundry that she'd meant to put away made her snort uncontrollably, thus causing her to drop the both items right at her bare feet, the knife coming too close for comfort next to her big toe.  
  
"Oh, think that's funny, do you?" Severus grumbled. "I've somehow managed to survive a wizarding war, you and your two friends nearly killing me, not to mention the many close brushes with death when I was a student. All it takes is one trip to your house when I'm supposed to be doing my own work to nearly put me out of my misery."  
  
Severus looked so disgruntled that Hermione was helpless to stop laughing in spite of the sour look on his face.  
  
"I'm sorry," she apologised after bending to pick up the butter knife and towel. "I was trying to thank you for helping me by sending you back with lunch. After all, you did go out of your way to bring my potions."  
  
"Yes, well..." Snape snorted, standing up and roughly dusting off the back of his trousers with one hand. "Next time I'll just leave everything in your damned kitchen. I was only trying to find a place to hide the book I bought you."  
  
Hermione had begun making her way back to the kitchen and stopped in her tracks, swiveling her head around with her mouth gaped open. "You don't mean—"  
  
"Yes, that one," Severus replied, gently nudging her in the back with a finger to continue walking. "I finally found a copy so you needn't try and sneak mine out of my home any longer."  
  
The fact that Severus even let Hermione into his home spoke volumes about how far he'd come as a person. There had been a point where, after the war, he'd wanted nothing to do with the Golden Trio or any of his old colleagues for that matter. That he'd struck up a...friendship, he supposed was an apt word, with the witch that was just twenty years his junior had been disconcerting at first. It wasn't until Hermione's twenty-fifth birthday (Hermione had whined, nagged, and then threatened until he promised to attend her party) that Severus realised he harboured more than just platonic feelings for the witch.   
  
The birthday cake had just been cut when he saw that Weasley boy leaning over to grab her arse when he thought no one was looking. At that point Severus realised that he wanted to be the only one to grab Hermione's arse, no one else. And that he wanted to break every last one of Ronald Weasley's beefy fingers for grabbing onto Hermione as if she were nothing more than some cheap tart.   
  
Of course, Severus had a world of hang-ups and oftentimes wondered if the witch only kept company with him merely out of pity. And to have access to his library. Whatever the case, he did enjoy spending time with her, and besides, she was a much better cook than he.   
  
The other thing that further cemented their friendship was an incident that occurred the year before. For the first time, Hermione had gone on the lash with her friends in Muggle London and got knee-walking drunk. Somehow she'd made it back to her house, but not before sending off her Patronus to Severus, begging him to come put her out of her misery. He had Apparated to her house (her wards had been long since admitting him) and found Hermione curled up on the floor, clutching onto her head. Had she been anyone else, Severus would have left her right there, allowing her to sleep it off. However, he'd been in the middle of brewing when Hermione's otter came trailing into his dimly lit house. Without giving it a second thought, he'd scooped the moaning witch up into his arms and Apparated them both to Spinner's End.   
  
For someone who barely came up to his shoulder, the witch made a mess that could only be described as monumental when she became sick from too many mixed drinks combined with the jolt of Apparation, and threw up right there on the floor of his sitting room. Violently heaving until there was nothing left but bile, Hermione had then burst into sloppy tears, repeatedly apologising for being such an unattractive inconvenience.   
  
It had taken Severus everything in his power to not laugh at the inebriated witch; there was sick all down the front of her dress, her eye makeup had run and left her with unsightly owlish black circles on her face, and her hair looked as if she had stuck her finger into an electrical outlet.   
  
In between ridding the babbling and sobbing witch of her vomit-soiled garments and then ushering her into his bathroom and beneath the shower spray that never seemed to run evenly, Severus managed to get Hermione clean while promising that she was not dying, that she did not need to go to St. Mungo's, that she would feel fine in the morning save for a pounding headache. He'd then carried her to his bedroom, tucked her damp and still naked body in between the sheets of his small bed, and tipped a phial of blue liquid down her throat.   
  
Severus had then left the witch to sleep off her stupor. After finishing the potions that had been left under stasis charm, he had gone to check on Hermione. Her limbs had been completely sprawled out beneath his sheets, and there had been an indentation where they dipped down into the space between her legs. He hadn't really paid attention to her nakedness at first; the only thing he'd wanted to do was get her sorted and into bed. The refreshed knowledge that she was completely starkers had set his blood boiling, but even Severus wasn't that far gone to molest an unconscious and very much incapacitated young woman. He'd even been willing to sleep in the hard, uncomfortable armchair beneath his window, knowing that it was the proper thing to do. Though, however muddled Hermione's mind might have been, she came to enough to open her eyes and look at Severus, mutter a slurred 'thank you' while attempting to gesture for him to lie next to her. And so for the first time they'd slept in the same bed, Hermione beneath the blankets—with her head pushed to the side as her breath had been horrendously sour—and Severus on top of the blankets.   
  
"What are you thinking about?" Hermione was now asking Severus as he followed her into the kitchen.  
  
"I was just remembering the one and only time I saw you completely pissed, and wondering why you waited until you were twenty-six to do so."  
  
"No, not that!" Hermione screamed in embarrassment, her cheeks flooding with red. "You're never going to let me forget about that, are you?"  
  
"The books you covered in vomit never forgot about it," he replied dismissively. "But in your defence you were a very polite drunkard; you kept saying, 'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry,' over and over again. You even offered to mop my floor, and you didn't complain about the burnt beans and toast I gave you the next morning."  
  
"Well, you fixed me breakfast, which is more than I can say for Ron and Harry," Hermione laughed, still cringing. "The things those two can do to an egg...it's practically criminal."  
  
"I still shudder in memory of their days in Potions class; please don't remind me," Severus drawled. "Anyway, why does your bedroom look as if it vomited? Have you never heard of cleaning spells?"  
  
"Severus Snape, I  _know_  you are not talking; some parts of your house are so dusty that I'm sure it's been there since the first Prime Minister. Besides, I was looking for something."  
  
"What, your sanity? I'm sure it's not hiding beneath your bed amid the dust bunnies."  
  
Severus had taken a seat at the small island and bit into the sandwich Hermione pushed in front of him. His smirk was momentarily hidden as he wiped his mouth on a paper napkin when she scowled at him.  
  
"No, clever arse. I was looking for a ring my dad gave me. When I babysat the other night it was on my dresser, but now I can't find it."  
  
"About that—" Severus began after swallowing, "are you going to spend every weekend with children that are not your own, wiping bums and drool and God knows what else?"  
  
"Why, Severus? Would you prefer that I wiped your bum instead?" Hermione asked sweetly while pouring out two glasses of lemonade.  
  
"You know, I ought to take you over my knee and spank your arse hard for that cheeky remark."  
  
"Oh, careful now, I might like it," Hermione shot back, which brought the black-haired wizard up short. "Merlin knows it might be the only action I've gotten since...damn, is it bad that I can't remember?"  
  
"Shameless chit, you don't need a spanking, you need a muzzle."  
  
"Why, you don't love the sweet sound of my voice?"  
  
This off-kilter brand of heckling was the norm for the two. Hermione knew that Severus had a sadistic sense of humour, but at times he was outright funny in his own dry way.  
  
"You know what they say: absence makes the heart grow fonder. Perhaps I could grow fond of your voice if I were to hear it less often."  
  
"You horrid man. I'm going record myself singing, sneak into your house, put the recorder on repeat and leave it in a place where not even magic can uncover it. Then I'm going to turn all of your jumpers pink."  
  
"If you think you can sneak into my house and brandish a wand, then you are sadly mistaken," Snape said pointedly, causing Hermione to cackle. "Speaking of pink, what the hell was that ugly thing in the middle of your bedroom floor?"  
  
Hermione frowned while she tried to think of what it was Severus was talking about.   
  
"Oh, that! That's my old dollhouse my granddad made for me when I was little. Lily loves that dollhouse and I promised that she could play with it when she came over. Stop frowning."  
  
Snape looked like a streak of gloom and doom amid Hermione's bright kitchen, perched atop the gaily painted wooden stool while frowning in her direction.   
  
"Well I nearly fell over the damned thing. And aren't little figurines or some rubbish supposed to go inside? Why is it filled with scarves?"  
  
"I think Lily was using them as blankets for her dolls?" Hermione replied offhandedly. "I didn't ask. All I know is she was entertained for four hours and I needed the quiet to put the baby to sleep."  
  
Snape rolled his eyes at the thought of the small Potter children; he had nothing against them, but would sooner put his balls in a vise than willingly offer his services as au pair for the evening. No, he was finished with children.   
  
For all intents and purposes Severus was retired, having no wish to teach again, but he did brew potions for the Hogwarts' infirmary as well as St. Mungo's, both of which nicely supplemented his pension and kept him busy during the week. His weekends were reserved for more leisurely activities, most of which included Hermione. Only as of late, she'd been keeping either the Potter children or the Weasley children, which hadn't left her with much time for anything else. During the week she worked like a maniac at the Ministry, often coming home with just enough time to swallow dinner, rush through a bath and drop into bed, all to wake up the next morning and repeat the process over again.  
  
Many times Snape wanted to suggest that Hermione worked too hard, that she needed some time to go out with her silly girlfriends or the like. He would never suggest going on a date with another bloke; he'd hated every single wizard she dated since breaking up with the Weasley boy in her youth. To his knowledge, Hermione never brought any of them home, nor did she go to their houses. In his unasked opinion, Hermione was too good for them all.   
  
Not that he thought he was much better, but hell if he would admit to having such thoughts.  
  
"Why don't you just tell your friends that they need to watch their own crumb snatchers for one effing weekend?" Severus asked.  
  
"I know, I know," Hermione sighed, distractedly swirling the ice cubes in her glass. "But they all sort of asked me ahead of time, only I didn't realise that I would be babysitting for four consecutive weekends in one month. That's why my bedroom looks the way it does; you're lucky you didn't see my box room. I'm sort of scared to go inside."  
  
"If it's as bad as your bedroom, then I'd rather not," Severus replied, swallowing the last bit of his lunch and brushing crumbs off his hand and onto his plate. "But I do thank you for the meal; you've saved me the trouble of burning yet another pot."  
  
"I don't understand how you can brew with your eyes closed yet manage to find a way to burn water–with an electric kettle," said Hermione.  
  
"Cooking and brewing aren't necessarily the same thing," Severus told her, coming over to plant a brief kiss on her forehead. "I'm off. They're expecting me at St. Mungo's."  
  
"Thanks again," Hermione said, sort of disappointed that he wasn't able to stay longer.   
  
"You know, you can always brew your own potions," Snape drawled as he threw his travelling cloak over his suit. "Then I wouldn't have to go out of my way to come across town."  
  
Hermione snickered; she knew that Severus liked brewing for her. Tonics for headaches, menstrual cramps, even the scar cream that she used for the never-fading mark between her breasts—he made them all. Even had a fit when she once suggested purchasing things from an apothecary to give him a break.  
  
"No, that's why I keep you around," she told Severus, causing him to smirk.  
  
"Perhaps I should brew you a potion that will make you invisible to everyone. Then the world won't be able to cling to your fingertips, begging for favours left and right."  
  
Hermione knew Severus had a point: she was getting worn down between helping everyone and staying extra hours at work at the behest of her boss. But what else would she do with her spare time? Everyone else was married and had families of their own. Ginny and Luna, as well as a couple other girls from work, were sometimes available to go to the pub or out for the odd coffee, but they had husbands to go home to.   
  
Not that she knocked any of her friends, but Hermione wasn't sure her 'happily-ever-after' was marriage and a house full of kids, at least, not at that point. She enjoyed her work and enjoyed returning to a quiet home where she could roam around in nothing but her knickers if she so wished while having tea and Cadbury's fingers for dinner if she didn't feel like cooking. Her mum often fretted about Hermione living by herself, while delicately pointing out that she wasn't getting any younger, that she had better find a suitable companion before she was too old to care.  
  
Over dinner, Hermione had told Severus about her mother's comment while joking that she was waiting for him to propose, which caused the wizard's eyes to grow wide with shock. Hermione had then told him to keep eating, that she had to fatten him up to find him a wife, and that she would teach her to cook since he was rubbish at doing so.  
  
"If you find a potion that will make me invisible, then you had better make a second phial because I refuse to be the only guinea pig," Hermione laughed as Severus made his way out her house.

* * *

 

By the following week, Hermione was sorely tempted to call on Severus and ask for a full cauldron of the previously discussed invisibility potion.   
  
Two weekends before, her house had been filled to bursting with children. Spell after spell had been utilised to clean up the large bag of sugar that had been spilled onto her kitchen floor and dragged around to leave a gritty white trail. Crooked pictures of flowers and suns with uneven beams of light had been drawn on her bathroom floor in China black ink, which came from a brand-new pot that Hermione would have sworn she had hidden in the back of her writing desk. Little brown hand prints (she'd bribed the kids with her favourite chocolate biscuits and they ate the entire box) had marred the clean surfaces of her walls and furniture, and she'd been almost too scared to venture a peek into a blue vase with painted white flowers that had been sloppily/covertly tucked beneath her coffee table.   
  
That babysitting episode had been enough to make her drink an entire bottle of wine once they'd all gone, all the while swearing to herself that she would never procreate. She would sooner have her Fallopian tubes tied, cut and laminated. She might not even have sex; she'd get a sign to hang across her thighs proclaiming:  _The Muffin Shop Is Closed—Indefinitely_.  
  
The weekend after babysitting, Hermione's parents had visited unexpectedly, bringing with them her annoying aunt, who used every opportunity to ask why her niece was not yet married, and that perhaps she was like some of these newfangled women who fancied other women instead of men. Hermione tried her best to not roll her eyes, fighting the urge to say that no, she was not a lesbian, and homosexuality was nothing new under the sun. Mr. Granger had nearly choked on his roast beef while Mrs. Granger diplomatically tried to steer the conversation back to more polite waters, while Hermione surreptitiously downed the remainder of her red wine in one swallow.   
  
By Monday morning, even though her house was blessedly empty, the thought of dragging herself out of bed to ready for work made her weep. After a bit of deliberation, it only took a few minutes before deciding that a Floo call to the Ministry to let them know she wouldn't be in was in order.   
  
Of course, feigning illness still hadn't stopped her boss from contacting her all afternoon with stupid questions.   
  
"If he calls me one more bloody time, I swear, I'm going to—" Hermione grumbled to herself at eleven o'clock when she heard the hearth being activated again. She had been on the way back to her bedroom and paused in the middle of the hallway to scream into the front room.  _"HERMIONE GRANGER DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE! SHE PACKED UP ALL HER STUFF AND MOVED TO CHINA! PLEASE **DON'T**  LEAVE A MESSAGE!"_  
  
"Is that so?" a familiar voice called back. "I should track down the rude little tart and chastise her for not saying goodbye."  
  
Smiling, Hermione ran into her front room and grinned widely when she saw Severus' surly face in the green flames. "I thought you were—"  
  
"I know who you thought I was, and no, I'm not that idiot," Severus said bluntly. "Shouldn't you be at work, saving the unicorns or something?"  
  
"Shouldn't you be at work, brewing more poison?"  
  
"I'm all done with plotting and planning—for the day, that is," Severus wryly offered. "What are you doing? And why are you still in your pyjamas?"  
  
Hermione looked down at her ratty sweatpants and tank top.   
  
"Because I refuse to leave my house," she announced defiantly. "I'm tired, I'm bloody tired. Bad enough that I've had to babysit all month, but then my parents decided to randomly show up with Aunt Hell, I mean, Aunt Heloise, last weekend, and they all stayed. I had to give up my bedroom and guest room, and I had to sleep on the sofa. I'm too damned old to sleep on anyone's sofa, much less my own; my arse needs a proper bed with proper cushion. Anyway, I was so knackered this morning, Merlin himself could have come knocking at my door and I would have asked if he minded coming back later."  
  
"In that case, I won't hold you up any longer," Severus replied, ready to end the Floo call when Hermione shouted.  
  
"No, wait! I...I don't mind seeing you, if you aren't busy," she reassured, hoping that Severus would stick around. She never minded his company, even on those days when she felt like being alone.  
  
"What do you want for lunch? I'll pick up something."  
  
"What? No, I can make us something."  
  
"Woman, you haven't even bothered to comb that rat's nest you call hair," Severus snapped, "so I know you're not in the mood to cook. Just tell me what it is you want and I'll bring it!"  
  
"Fine! Chinese takeaway, and jaffa cakes. And some Choco Leibnitz. And stop snapping at me!"  
  
Severus let out a hiss before disappearing, leaving behind empty green flames. Thirty minutes later, he showed up at her doorstep with their lunch and Hermione's coveted biscuits in hand.  
  
"What are you, five?" Severus asked once they were finished their meal. He and Hermione were settled on her sofa, him with a book in his lap and her with a book balanced in one hand. She had fixed a plate of her biscuits and ate each one with much relish, the delight on her face palpable as she twiddled her pink-varnished toes with every bite.   
  
"Thank you, Severus," she mumbled around a mouthful of biscuit. "I feel much more relaxed now."  
  
"You look it, even if your hair still appears to be petrified," Severus drawled from behind his book. "I've blocked your Floo as well, by the way. Right now, no one is able to get in contact with you."  
  
That comment made Hermione stop chewing.  
  
"What? What if someone has an emergency?!" she shrilled, spraying crumbs everywhere.  
  
"Then they better damn well sort it out on their own," Severus replied nonchalantly, lowering his book to brush away an errant crumb that had somehow made its way to his sleeve. "You were one step away from boarding the crazy train. Right now you need to eat your biscuits and read your book and try to reclaim what little bit of sanity you have left."  
  
Hermione knew Severus was right, yet she still stretched her leg across the sofa and poked him right in his black trousers covered thigh with her big toe. The wizard swatted her ankle, but he did pull her foot all the way into his lap, lightly running his thumb across the top.  
  
"My, my, if people could see us now. Tongues would surely wag," Hermione said teasingly, swallowing the last bite of biscuit and flexing the toes held snugly in Severus' grasp. "They would not only accuse you of being a paedophile, but also a perv with a foot fetish."  
  
Severus lifted one eyebrow and smirked at Hermione, who stretched her legs out further to push her other foot into his lap.  
  
"Don't stop, though, that feels good."  
  
"Miss Granger, I'm beginning to believe that you not only keep me around for my potions-making prowess, but also to play with your toes."  
  
"If you listen to others, they'd say you were playing with something else," Hermione sniggered, remembering how Harry and Ron had poked fun at her and Severus' friendship. Molly insisted that Severus was after her virtue, and it had been all Hermione could do to keep from pointing out that her son had already handled that, albeit rather poorly.  
  
"Out of the mouths of jackasses..."  
  
Hermione began to giggle, the sound cut off by a moan when Severus dug his fingertips into the slim arch of her foot.  
  
"That really does feel good," she murmured, sinking down into the sofa cushions and beckoning him to continue. "Hey, weren't you supposed to be making me some sort of invisibility potion?" Hermione asked after a few minutes. "Or did you get tied up with brewing poison for everyone that's crossed you in life?"  
  
"You little wretch," Severus softly replied, but he did pause to reach into his inner pocket and withdraw a phial containing shimmery white liquid.  
  
"No!" Hermione exclaimed excitedly, hastily sitting upright and snatching the phial out his hand. "Will it really make me invisible?"  
  
"No. I thought of all sorts of complications that could arise with you going invisible, but this is in fact a Shrinking Potion: a temporary one. See what you make of it; it lasts for a couple hours."  
  
Hermione wondered what the hell she would do with a Shrinking Potion. But seeing as how Severus had gone through all the trouble to make it, and her afternoon  _had_  turned around for the better, she threw all caution to the wind and uncapped the phial.  
  
"So if I take this, then what? How small will I get?"  
  
"There's only one way to find out."  
  
"And where will I go? Will you keep me in your pocket?"  
  
"You ask a lot of questions, too many, in fact," Severus replied, picking up his book and opening it to where he'd left off.  
  
"OK, I'm going to take it," Hermione said with finality. "But not here. I'll go in my room."  
  
"Oh no, I'd better come with you," Severus replied, getting up and following her down the hall. "Because if you haven't cleaned it yet, then you're liable to get lost in that jungle and what a time I'll have trying to explain that to your friends and family."  
  
But Hermione had cleaned her room, and even pushed the monstrosity of her dollhouse against the wall, leaving the open back of it exposed.  
  
"Very funny, Severus," she replied, bringing the phial up to her lips. "Wait, where's yours? I'm not taking this by myself!"  
  
"If I take it, will you cease your nattering?" Severus asked, roughly withdrawing a second phial from his pocket.  
  
"Maybe. There's only one way to find out," Hermione smugly replied, intoning Severus' voice when he'd told her the same thing.  
  
Hermione insisted on counting to three before they both swallowed the potions. It took a few seconds to work, but suddenly there was a loud pop and a rustle of fallen clothing which was no longer supported by a body as it dropped to a heap on the cream-carpeted bedroom floor.  
  
"Mmmmhph!!! !"   
  
Spluttering and fighting her way through a jumble of knickers, sweatpants and tank top, Hermione finally emerged from her fabric prison until she was standing on the carpet, her feet completely embedded in its fibres.  
  
"What the..."  
  
Gaped mouth, Hermione froze and stared around at her bedroom as if seeing it through new eyes. Everything looked absolutely  _huge_. Her bed, her dresser, her nightstand...even her furry blue carpet slippers that she'd kicked off and shoved to the side before crawling into bed the night before appeared monumental.   
  
 _Thank goodness you no longer have a cat. Crookshanks would have thought you were a new toy._  
  
Quickly becoming used to her somewhat new surroundings, as everything looked the same yet different considering her ant's-view scope, Hermione quickly realised that she hadn't yet seen her friend.   
  
"Severus?" she asked, looking across at the pile of black that stood out starkly among the pale furnishings of her bedroom. From her viewpoint, it was extra high and looked mountainous.  
  
 _Bloody hell, can't tell his trousers from his shirt,_  she mused of his single-colour wardrobe.   
  
Even in the warmest weather, the wizard still wore black, even after Hermione told him in no uncertain terms that he would pass out from heat stroke. Severus had sneered and told her that he'd been wearing black, even on the hottest days, since she was in nappies and that he had yet to pass out like some poof.   
  
"Severus! Where are you?"  
  
"Stop your shouting, woman," said the slightly aggravated voice from somewhere beneath the pile of fabric that matched almost too perfectly and seemingly had no beginning and no end. "Four inches tall and you still yell loud enough to wake the dead."  
  
Just as Hermione opened her mouth to offer a snappy remark, a wizard whom Hermione nearly always saw fully dressed came into view. A familiar stringy mop of black hair was the first thing she noticed, attached to a sharp-angled face which led down to a slender neck, slender shoulders, wiry arms, an equally pale, wiry torso that was only slightly soft in the middle (which Hermione proudly took credit for, considering how the man once looked as if he were suffering from consumption), and skinny legs that looked as if they could really use a bit of sunshine in their life. It was the part below the belly and above the thighs which was a shade darker than the rest of his body, save for the pitch dark hair surrounding it that matched its owner's head in colour which sent Hermione into a fit of hysterics.  
  
Hermione screamed; Severus looked shocked. Hermione turned and fled as fast as her newly-sized feet could carry her, and Severus folded both arms across his chest and smirked.  
  
"You're naked!  _Naked!_ " yelled the tiny retreating witch. "Why are you bloody naked?!"  
  
She sounded as if she was on the verge of sobbing, yet Severus was unable to stop himself from further heckling.  
  
"So are you, if you haven't noticed."  
  
That smoothly offered comment which held not even a modicum of shame made Hermione pause, and she stopped midway to turn around and look at Severus, back down at herself, back to Severus, and then promptly forward as she squealed again and began searching presumably for a place to hide.  
  
The sound of the witch going into a state made him give a rarely heard, rusty laugh that emanated deep from his belly. Severus thought he ought to feel a lot more self-conscious at the moment. He knew that he was not pretty by any means, and felt that his thin, scarred body left much to be desired. Looking across at Hermione, whom was now gone, he felt like a finger painting might when being placed next to a Monet. He had no idea why she was reticent to stand before him completely nude; Merlin knows the sight of her pink-tipped breasts, skin that looked soft all over, and curls between her legs that were a shade darker than those covering her head, were a sumptuous sight for his eyes. His cock certainly had no objections to her plush, round bottom as she shifted to turn and run away from him as quickly as possible when she realised that all they both wore were the expressions on their faces: hers a moue of horror and his of utmost amusement.  
  
"Hermione?" Severus called, cursing as he stumbled when his toe became caught on one of the carpet loops. "Where the devil are you?"  
  
"I'm not telling!" she shouted from somewhere across the room.  
  
"Why are you being so silly?" he asked, pausing to see where her voice was coming from. "Surely you've seen a naked man before? Sorry to make your eyes bleed; afraid I'm not much to write home about."  
  
Black eyes scanned the room until he caught sight of Hermione. She'd scampered into the pink dollhouse and into one of its frilly decorated rooms and was standing behind a tiny faux-silk dressing screen. Cautiously stepping into the miniature-scaled fully furnished room, Severus calmly stood on the other side of the screen, listening to Hermione's panicked breathing.  
  
"Don't look at me!" she screamed from behind the screen.   
  
Severus nearly bellowed with laughter again; he couldn't believe the usually roaring lioness was now cowering with maidenly shyness, all over a bit of bare skin. At first, he'd thought Hermione was disgusted by the sight of his body. It only took a minute before he noticed that bashfulness and not revulsion covered her features.   
  
"If you're so ashamed at being naked, then how the hell did you ever have sex?" Severus asked with great interest, looking around and settling onto a doll-sized sofa that was actually outfitted with real velvet cushions. "Remarkable, this thing is," he murmured, peering around the room. "It has better furniture than my house. If I were the velvet sofa sort of man I'd nick this and Transfigure it for my own sitting room."  
  
By then, Hermione had peeked her head from behind the screen, only the top of her bushy-curled head showing. Brisk air continued sweeping over her nude body, a mocking and constant reminder that she was naked as the day she was born. Severus had settled onto the sofa pushed against the thin wooden wall, looking quite comfortable with his pale, uncovered limbs strewn about and contrasting against the deep red.  
  
"Well? Are you going to answer my question?" he asked, swiveling his head round to stare at her.  
  
"Yes, I've seen a naked man, I just...I never stared! It's impolite to stare," Hermione grumbled.   
  
"And who told you that?" Severus asked, only to be met with silence. "Are you going to stand behind there for the next three hours?"  
  
"Maybe."  
  
 _Damn,_  Severus thought, continuing to gander around the room. He hadn't meant to make Hermione upset and wondered how the next few hours were going to pan out.  
  
Hermione's head disappeared again. She was quiet for the next few minutes, and Severus wondered what she was doing on the other side of the screen.  
  
 _Damn. I hope she's not crying._  
  
"Severus?" she asked in a small voice after awhile. "Will you please find something for me to cover myself with?"  
  
Hermione sounded as if she was talking from the floor, and Severus was tempted to sneak over and see if she was hunched down. At least she didn't sound as if she was crying. But if he were to look at her she would most likely yell her head off again, and all of this drama hadn't been something he'd anticipated while brewing the potion.  
  
"For God's sake, I don't care if you're naked," he grumbled dispassionately.  
  
"Please!" Hermione beseeched. "Please; I don't want you to see me like this."  
  
"Why? Do you have a third nipple or something? An extra toe too many? No, I've already seen your feet. I honestly fail to see the problem."  
  
"Severus!"  
  
"Alright, Granger," he acquiesced, standing up and leaving the room.  
  
It was completely surreal, being four inches high—and naked—whilst walking through the eerily realistic rooms of the dollhouse. At least there were no freakishly ugly dolls standing about. Severus had no opinion on toys for children, especially none geared towards little girls, but he had passed the odd toy shop or two in Diagon Alley, and some of the faces painted on those dolls were enough to scare the living wits out of an adult. As for everything else, some of the decor was too bright and cheery for his tastes, and Severus was tempted to blast some of it away with his wand until he remembered that said wand was lying back on Hermione's floor amid his now undoubtedly wrinkled pile of clothing.   
  
 _Hmm..._  
  
He  _could_  use a wandless spell to incinerate those curtains; why anyone thought floral-patterned drapes were attractive was beyond him...  
  
 _Sod the curtains! Now go find this girl something to cover herself with before she has a heart attack._  
  
Strolling until he came across the room with the silk scarves, Severus gathered as many as his considerably smaller arms could carry and dragged them back into the room where Hermione had hidden herself. The scarves had been small when he was his regular size, but now they were nearly the length and width of two duvets and looked like some sort of over-sized wedding train as they dragged behind him when he walked throughout the doll house. Thankfully they weren't too heavy and it didn't take him long to gather everything.  
  
"Here," Severus gruffly offered, shoving a length of slippery purple polka-dotted material behind the dressing screen with one hand, making sure to keep his head turned in the opposite direction. "I've covered up too so as to not offend your senses, so you don't need to hide."  
  
"Thank you," Hermione said sheepishly, her voice muffled. After a few minutes, during which Severus was sure he heard a few curses issued under her breath, Hermione reappeared from behind the screen, covered from neck to ankle in her artfully-arranged scarf. She almost looked like a woman straight out of a travel brochure, going on holiday at some tropical island.   
  
Severus had less shame than her and only covered his middle with a blue polka-dotted scarf. The other scarves had been left in a pile in the middle of the floor but covered the other bits of furniture strewn about, making the room look as if it were the inside of a genie's lamp.  
  
"What was all that about?" he asked, locating the sofa amid the rumples of slippery fabric and sitting down, patting the cushion next to him.   
  
"I don't like anyone seeing me naked," Hermione answered tersely, sitting next to Severus and curling up into a ball beneath her scarf.   
  
Severus stared at her. "I'm almost afraid to ask just how you've managed to be intimate with another."  
  
"With the drapes closed and beneath the sheets," Hermione mumbled into her knees, blushing seven shades of red.  
  
"What the hell? That isn't sex, that's a séance!" Severus almost exploded, causing her to further cringe. "You've been doing it wrong, something I'm sure you aren't used to hearing."  
  
"Well, sorry if I haven't had as much...practice as you!" Hermione shouted back.   
  
"I'm sorry about the bloke that made you feel the need to cover up, lie back, and think of England."  
  
"God, I could really slap you!" Hermione bellowed, although the 'lie back and think of England' had sent her into a gale of giggles. "Damn you, stop laughing at me. I can't help it if I'm shy."  
  
"If it's any consolation, I know what it's like to feel unsure of yourself," Snape admitted between his own chuckles.  
  
"Bollocks; you're the most self-assured person I know. At least, you give off that you are."  
  
"I'm not, and I won't lie and say that I am," Severus replied. "But I am comfortable in what I know, and one of those things I will share with you: your body is lovely and you have absolutely no reason to hide it."  
  
Hermione hadn't been expecting that and gave an embarrassed smile. "No, I don't think so..."  
  
"Ignorance does not suit you, Hermione. And it's rude to debate a compliment; haven't you any manners? Now listen to me when I say that any wizard who was lucky enough to have you wasted his and your time by not thoroughly kissing every inch of your delectable skin."  
  
 _Whoa, definitely didn't see that coming!_  Hermione thought frantically, her stomach fluttering nervously at Severus' words 'thoroughly kissing every inch of your delectable skin'. The man never wasted time with beating around the bush; he said exactly what was on his mind, and now was evidently one of those times.  
  
"Do you really think that my body is lovely?" she asked in a small, unsure voice.  
  
"Not only your body, but yes, I really think so."  
  
"Then why are you just telling me this?" Hermione demanded with a little fire in her tone.  
  
"Would you have listened before?" Severus challenged. "I'm telling you now and you still doubt me. Honestly, I question the character of the males you've previously chosen to consort with."  
  
"Eww, you make it sound like I had a harem of men lined up," Hermione said, wrinkling her nose. "You know I've only dated Ron."  
  
Severus leaned in closer as if he were about to divulge some great secret. "Oh? Does your brief rendezvous with the brainless Bulgarian oaf not count?"  
  
Hermione yelped. "How do you know about that?" she demanded, her brown eyes flashing with shock. "I haven't even told Ginny about that! Were you spying on me?"  
  
"Don't worry about how I know," Severus replied easily. "Just know that I know, and I wanted to wring your neck for allowing that idiot boy back into your fold. Have you ever heard the phrase 'casting your pearls before swine'? Viktor Krum is as porcine as one can get."  
  
"I really do want to slap you now," Hermione informed. "Anyway, things didn't quite pan out with Viktor as I'd planned..."  
  
"I imagine Madam Krum threw a wrench into his plans?"  
  
"Yes, the idiot! Didn't tell me he was getting married until I saw the picture of his fiancée in his wallet!"  
  
"You went snooping in his pockets? I'm impressed."  
  
"I went snooping in yours, too. Didn't find much, I'm afraid."  
  
"Which is by design, Miss Sticky Fingers."  
  
"Shut your mouth. I was only trying to pay you back for dinner, since I'd invited you. I don't know why you paid when I offered in the first place."  
  
"Because it was the gentlemanly thing to do. And don't you laugh, either."  
  
Hermione snorted. "You are no gentleman, Severus Snape. You are rude and obnoxious and don't give a nifler's arse about diplomatic exchanges...but I wouldn't have you any other way."  
  
"Really? Then how would you have me?"  
  
Hermione had long been used to Severus's direct manner in speech, but it was a bit different now considering that they were both sitting a few inches apart, completely naked save for the silk scarves protecting their modesty. Even though just her head, the tips of her toes, and her hands were exposed, Hermione had never felt more vulnerable than she did at that moment with Severus' black eyes intently boring into hers while his question hung thickly in the air between them.  
  
"You don't know?" Severus purred, his eyes smouldering at Hermione. "I could never get you to shut up before, and you're rendered speechless by one simple question. Remarkable."  
  
"I...what?"  
  
"I do believe your intellect is shutting down. Since you are incapable of speaking at the present time, perhaps I should share just how I would have you."  
  
Five minutes ago, Hermione felt a sense of ebullience and just a touch of smugness when she told Severus that he was rude and obnoxious. That smug attitude was swiftly replaced by one of uncertainty as well as something else that she was unable to put her finger on.  
  
"Wait a minute, what is all this  _have me_  business about? Since when did you become so interested?"  
  
One moment Hermione looked as if she was about to fall out of her seat, the next, as if she were going to push Severus out of his. He hadn't meant to laugh at the inflamed look on her face, but did just that.  
  
"And just what are you getting at?" Severus inquired, arching an eyebrow that was reminiscent of his teaching days whenever a student blundered in his class. "Are you insinuating that I am not interested in the fairer sex? Because believe me, an old and unattractive pariah I might be, but I notice a pretty witch just like any other man. Remember, even eunuchs still had eyes."  
  
"Well, I never disputed that," Hermione offered sardonically, "but I never expected for you to look at me...in that way."  
  
"I've looked at you  _that way_  for quite some time," Severus replied. "However, you have the unfortunate habit of missing the obvious when it's right beneath your nose. Maybe I should have Transfigured myself into a house-elf to garner some of your more personal attention."  
  
"You open your mouth for everything else; why didn't you just tell me?"  
  
"So you could laugh me right out of your house? No, thank you."  
  
Hermione rolled her eyes. "After all this time, I'd think you would give me more credit than that."  
  
"Even so, if you had accepted my advances, I could have always attributed it to a fit of madness."  
  
Hermione was no fool: she knew deflection when it slapped her in the face. She just knew that Severus would have laughed at her and placated her, making her feel like some silly little schoolgirl had she told him the way she truly felt about him. Yes, even though she was now twenty-seven, she still couldn't help but to feel gauche and inexperienced around him at times, even though he rarely called attention to their age difference. So to find out that Severus believed she would have turned him down was eye-opening.  
  
"I just can't believe that we're sitting in my old dollhouse, wrapped up in my scarves. When I lugged that damned box out of my closet this was the last thing I'd envisioned."  
  
"They certainly smell...flowery," Severus grunted, lifting one corner up to his nose.   
  
"It's my perfume," Hermione explained, lifting her own scarf to catch a whiff of the lingering trace of rose-based scent.  
  
"Oh, I know," Severus replied with a wicked gleam in his eye. "I can be blindfolded in a room, and still I'd be able to pick you out purely by your mouthwatering scent."  
  
There went those damned butterflies again. Pretty words were never something that outright impressed Hermione; if anything, they put her off. Pretty boys with pretty words who would have said anything to get anything. But Severus Snape was not a pretty wizard who wasted words, although by then it was becoming evident that if he kept talking like he was, that Hermione would soon give in to anything he requested of her.  
  
"You don't miss a thing, do you?" Hermione asked, more out of nervousness than anything.   
  
"I try not to," Severus drawled. "Just like I notice that you're trembling. Why are you trembling, Hermione? Are you cold?"  
  
"No. I'm nervous and you know it," Hermione retorted. "So I don't know why you're asking when you already know the answer."  
  
"I try not to presume too much," said Severus, settling back on the sofa and draping one wiry arm along the back. "Why are you nervous, Hermione? Is it because you'd rather be doing something else besides sitting here, badgering one another? Perhaps you have more pleasurable pursuits in mind."  
  
There was little doubt in Severus' mind: he had long wanted to yank the little witch beneath him and lose himself in her sweetness, in that unmanageable hair, in between her soft, creamy thighs. That was a given, one he could freely admit to himself. All Hermione had do to was say the word and he would rip that ridiculous blue thing from around her body and lick whenever his tongue could reach.   
  
"Ah, my little termagant has gone mum again; no matter," Severus said with a crooked smile, sitting up and moving just a hairsbreadth away from Hermione's face. "I meant it, you know. I would lay you down right on top of that ugly arsed pile of scarves, stick my face between your thighs to lick and savour the softest part of you until you forgot your name as well as mine."  
  
Hermione had been watching Severus with widened eyes ever since he moved over her, and almost stopped breathing at his comment. Her eyes were glued to his, her mouth slightly agape, the sound of her now laboured breathing filling the air.  
  
"Ever since you lay naked in my bed, I've wanted to suck your little nipples raw. I swear, I never touched you that night; I would never force myself upon you or anyone, but damned if I didn't want to steal a lick, just one tiny lick, purely to see how you tasted. I declare, Miss Granger, you have the prettiest set of tits I've ever seen."  
  
Hermione's mouth had gone dry and her tongue felt as if it were made of cotton. "If you're going to talk me into an orgasm, then perhaps you should use my first name?" she suggested weakly once she got her mouth working again.  
  
"Hmm, could I really?" Severus asked lasciviously. "Too shy to even let me see that soft body of yours and you actually uttered the word 'orgasm'. My, my, you are surprising. I was almost ready to ask if you've ever even had one."  
  
"Of course I have!" Hermione snapped, squirming uncomfortably beneath Severus' knowing stare.  
  
"It doesn't count if it came by your own hand."  
  
The blush on her face was affirmation enough for Severus to know what he suspected all along. He chuckled darkly while reaching for Hermione's hand. She looked perplexed as he pulled her off the sofa and tugged her over in front of a doll-sized full length mirror that was near the screen she'd previously hidden behind. Its reflection was murky, as actual reflective glass hadn't been used, but a short wandless spell from the black-haired professor fixed that little snag instantly.  
  
Wrapping an arm around Hermione's waist and moving her to stand in front of him, Severus watched as she kept her gaze averted from her reflection while desperately trying to keep the material around her body from falling. Long, gentle fingers caressed the curve of Hermione's hip while more slid beneath her chin and forced her to look forward.   
  
"Tell me who it is that made you too embarrassed to properly look at yourself with no clothes, and I will gladly hex them into oblivion."  
  
"Besides Dolohov?" Hermione softly replied, lowering the scarf at her neck just enough to reveal the pale faded scar between her breasts. "No one, really..."  
  
Watching as Severus closed his eyes while slowly shaking his head in disgust, he pulled Hermione back to meet with his chest, and rested his chin atop her head. His arm had tightened around her waist, effectively keeping her from moving if she got the notion to do so.   
  
"Excuse me for being crude, your majesty, but fuck that scar. As far as you're concerned, even without it, anything else would just be gilding the lily."  
  
Severus' callused fingers now moved to the side of her neck, rubbing soothing little circles into the area. Hermione still hadn't outright looked into the mirror, but she had allowed her body to melt into Severus' while loosening her death grip on her scarf.   
  
"Your hands feel amazing," she murmured, tilting her head back and allowing it to rest in the bony dip of his shoulder.   
  
"Does that mean you will indulge me by allowing me to touch you elsewhere?" Severus asked quietly, running his palm across Hermione's stomach, searching for the indentation of her navel through the slippery material concealing her body and dipping his finger into it. He had literally walked out of his own bindings when they both stood up from the sofa, and now his semi-erection was pressed into the cleft of Hermione's behind. She had been too caught up in the tantalising sensation of his hands roaming over more innocent areas of her body and didn't notice.  
  
"Yes," Hermione stammered, swallowing hard when those teasing fingertips skimmed along her collarbone and came to a rest at the hollowed notch in its centre.   
  
"What else, Hermione? Will you let me kiss you here?" Severus asked, punctuating his question by sweeping Hermione's curls to one side and bowing his head to brush his lips against the exposed nape of her neck.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"What about here?"  
  
He drew her wrist up to his face and lightly trailed his tongue across her pulse.  
  
 _"Yess."_  
  
"And here?"  
  
Slim fingers grazed across the front of her womanhood, cupping and using just enough pressure to send a jolt to her clitoris.  
  
"Oh God, yes!"  
  
"Have you ever knelt over another's face, Hermione? Has a man ever used his fingers and tongue on you until your knees were weak and your voice ragged from crying out?"  
  
The unspoken answer was 'no' but the only thing Hermione could let out was a small whimper as her hips rocked evenly against Severus' hand.   
  
"The things I would do to you," he murmured, slowly grinding his crotch into her behind for emphasis. "I'd leave no part of you untouched...untasted..."  
  
Unable to take anymore of Severus' verbal torture, Hermione slipped both arms up and around his neck, grabbing two fistfuls of black hair and tugging his head down to hers. Despite their awkward positioning, she craned her neck around until their lips were close enough to touch.  
  
"Are we about to completely destroy our friendship?" she asked breathlessly when he bowed his head yet refrained from kissing her.  
  
"Completely," Severus murmured, capturing the shell of Hermione's ear between his lips, "but only if you want to."  
  
"But what if things change?"  
  
"I hope they do change. I've grown weary of tiptoeing around you for the last two years. Even your almost mother-in-law was beginning to get suspicious."  
  
Hermione kicked Severus in his shin for that remark and moved on—she definitely did  _not_  want to think about living the rest of her life in a shacked existence as the next Mrs. Weasley, especially considering the way she had another naked man behind her, his cock continuously sliding against her arse. But she had an innate sense of worry, one that sometimes stopped her from leaping headfirst into things. At the moment, however, the feel of Severus' naked body pressed against her (why hadn't she realised how soft and warm his skin was?) forced her to admit that she wanted to ruin their friendship, and perhaps take it to another level.  
  
But for goodness' sake, they were in her childhood dollhouse in her bedroom at one o'clock on a Monday afternoon. And wrapped up in a bunch of scarves that she'd bought from a little street fair with her mum on one of their girls only Saturday outings. Well, Severus had lost his scarf halfway between the sofa and the mirror, but still...  
  
 _Right, because shagging Severus is the least mad idea you're having at the moment. Have you forgotten that you're both the size of a faerie?_  
  
 _Sod it._

Somehow seemingly knowing that Hermione had put an end to her internal battle of wills, as she raised herself on tiptoe and burrowed further into his warmth, Severus nudged the side of her face with his prominent nose and steered her mouth in front of his. Tempted to shove his tongue between her lips and render a hard, bruising kiss, one that he was sure Hermione would remember, he resisted. Instead, his mouth nipped and played along hers, lightly suckling on her top lip, then the lower, before beginning a series of small, sipping kisses that soon had her moaning.   
  
Besides, if things panned out the way Severus was sure they would, he had all the time in the world to really lay one on her.  
  
But it seemed that Hermione had other ideas, for she met Severus' slow kiss with one of a similar cadence, until she felt the need to turn around and cause them to stand belly to belly, breast to chest, all with her arms still around his neck, desperately pulling him closer for more. Eager to obliterate any space between them, Hermione pulled and tugged on the wizard, practically climbing him like a pole until their combined weight almost sent them tumbling to the floor.  
  
"Oops! Sorry," Hermione laughed. "Wasn't trying to do that."  
  
"You're so short, it's a miracle you're able to see down there," Severus replied, grasping her by the forearms and steadying her on her feet.  
  
Hermione wrapped her arms around Severus' narrow waist and stared up at him. "You're the one that's too bloody tall. I should call you 'Andre The Giant'."  
  
"Call me anything but 'Severus' and I'll make your backside rosy," he threatened. "Now, come here. I'm supposed to be practicing finesse, instead you've got me on the verge of swearing like a sailor."  
  
"Practicing?" Hermione asked, watching as Severus flicked his wrist to arrange the scarves littering the floor into a sort of thick, cushy pallet. "Seems to me you don't need any practice."  
  
"Lippy witch," Severus grunted, placing his hands on Hermione's shoulders and urging her to the floor. "It's the restraining to let every single thought that crosses my mind that I could use the practice with."  
  
"You definitely have a knack for brutal honesty," Hermione grinned, scooting back onto the scarf bed and leaning up on her elbows. "Why can't I call you Andre The Giant? Would you prefer something else? Lord of Love? Snuggle bum? Honey cheeks?"  
  
"Keep it up, Miss Granger, and I really will spank that luscious arse of yours," Severus promised, mentally wincing as he felt his forty-six-year-old knees creak as he lowered himself to the floor.  
  
"I apologise for my levity," Hermione said in a tone that sounded as though she was not sorry at all. "Do you forgive me?"  
  
"We'll start at your first born and take it from there—ah, a rather bad pun considering what we're about to do."  
  
With deft precision, Severus moved to Hermione's feet and sat cross-legged. Looking over the witch with keen awareness, he took in the sight of her tangled brown curls splayed about behind her head. Even though she was no longer clutching her scarf to her chest like a life vest, it still was draped over and concealing much of her form, its edges trailing over and clashing horribly with the rest of the silk scarves on the floor.   
  
Everything was a hodgepodge of polka dots, stars, stripes, and rectangles; one scarf even had red splotches that vaguely resembled a bird that had been stepped on. On top of it all, they all smelled of that damned floral perfume Hermione was rarely without, which always lingered and teased Severus' cursedly large nostrils long after she had taken her leave. It was like sitting on a perfumed silken cloud, one so ugly that it was nearly attractive. The eerily perfect dollhouse room did not help things; Severus almost preferred the bare furnishings of his own home at Spinner's End. He felt odd and out of place sitting there, like an ugly duckling among a bunch of swans.  
  
As ridiculous as everything seemed, Severus still found Hermione to be obscenely appealing. She probably could have worn a potato sack and done it justice.  
  
And don't we sound like a right smitten bastard?  
  
"So..." Hermione began, interrupting his thoughts. "Are you going to kiss me again?" The feel of those warm, thin lips that sometimes still sneered at her, though not out of malice, was fresh upon her memory but she decided that she would like to relive the experience.  
  
Severus seemed to be deliberating over her question, even though the answer was immediately on the tip of his tongue.  
  
"Of course I am."  
  
"When?"  
  
"When you least expect it."  
  
Hermione heaved a sigh, leaden with a mixture of exasperation and impatience. She craned her neck to look at the man sitting stock-still at her feet. Never had she noticed Severus looking at her with...well, she couldn't tell exactly what he was thinking. Even after all this time, he still never divulged his every thought, but there was a gleam in his dark eyes that made her stomach clench. Although she remained covered from breast to thigh by her scarf, Hermione may as well have been naked with the way Severus appeared to be staring right through the fabric.  
  
"Move that," he stated with a curt nod.  
  
"What?"  
  
"You heard me: move the scarf. I wish to see all of you."  
  
"What for?"  
  
"Because it pleases me, and you are mine and my witch will have no reasons for this unseemly shyness. Now either remove the scarf, or I will take you onto my lap, sit us both in front of a mirror and force you to watch your own reflection as you play with your nipples and finger your little snatch until you stop blushing."  
  
"My, but you're a dirty man," Hermione half-whispered, grasping at the material lying over her chest between thumb and forefinger and slowly peeling it away until it rested right atop her pudendum.  
  
"She calls me dirty yet I'm the one able to smell her wet—"  
  
Severus was abruptly cut off when she reached out to kick him. Hermione quickly discovered that he wasn't lying: soon as she shifted her leg, she felt the undeniable dampness slickening the inside of her thighs. Had she really become aroused purely by Severus' voice? She had been joking about him talking her into an orgasm, but maybe the idea wasn't that far-fetched.  
  
But before her foot was able to make purchase with his torso, Severus swiftly reached out and caught Hermione's ankle, much like plucking a fly out of midair. He tucked her foot into his armpit, and she could feel the tuft of soft hair at its centre ticking her skin.  
  
"Let me go."  
  
"No. You tried to kick me."  
  
"I won't do it again."  
  
Severus scoffed. "As if I believe you."  
  
Wriggling toes worked themselves into that patch of hair. Severus looked at Hermione in disbelief as if to say, Really?  
  
Clearly, he was not the ticklish sort.  
  
Apparently, Severus had also forgotten about telling Hermione to completely uncover herself, because he didn't try to remove the scarf that now only covered a small expanse of her hips. An infinitesimal sized sliver of her pubic hair peeked out from beneath the silk, and if Hermione shifted in either direction, it threatened to completely fall away.  
  
With Hermione's foot still entrapped in his armpit, Severus pushed her leg until it was bent at the knee. He then pushed at her other leg until she was splayed enough for his liking.  
  
"Touch yourself."  
  
"Now? Are you going to watch me?"  
  
"No, tomorrow," came the sardonic reply. "Yes, now, and watch you is exactly what I'm going to do."   
  
Severus turned his head, running his lips over the part of Hermione's calf that was closest to his face, while his eyes remained glued to hers.  
  
"I almost thought you were going to give me hell for not taking this off," she commented, slipping her hand beneath the scarf and between her legs.  
  
"Oh, there's time for that," Severus replied knowingly, reaching down to stroke the outsides of her thighs. "You're going to want to remove it, I assure you."  
  
Rolling her eyes, Hermione then closed them, allowing her fingers to drift lower until they were embedded between her folds. Usually she used one finger inside herself to warm things up, but with Severus and his salacious promises, she had long passed warm and went directly to furnace hot. She began stroking her clit in anticlockwise circles, welcoming the flickers of pleasure that worked their way up her spine.  
  
This was certainly different; she had never masturbated in front of another person, and rarely in the light of day. She either had to be extremely worked up or extremely bored to bother with frigging herself in the afternoon, as the daylight seemed to be a bit intrusive even when her eyes were closed. Severus' hands, which continued stroking her body with uncharacteristic gentleness was also distracting, yet soothing, at the same time. She was almost tempted to ask if she could forgo the self-induced orgasm and instead settle for a full body massage, but perhaps he would indulge her later. Besides, she was horny by now. Her pussy throbbed every time visions of kneeling over his face while his tongue and fingers probed at her tender flesh flooded her mind.   
  
 _Oh, fuck._  
  
Did the man have this all planned out? No, he couldn't have; that was nearly impossible. But it didn't matter, because the more Hermione rubbed herself while thinking about Severus eating her out...her kneeling on all fours with her knickers halfway down her parted thighs while he fucked her from behind... reaching beneath her to pinch at her nipples... moving lower to diddle her clit... and then groaning with that deliciously filthy mouth of his as he pulled out to grind against her while spilling himself all over her buttocks...  
  
 _Oh shit, I'm going to come!_  
  
Severus knew Hermione was on the verge of going over, probably well before she did. Her toes were curled up in his armpit while her other foot kept digging into the folds of the scarf beneath it. Her skin was flushed from head to toe, her bottom lip was in serious danger of being gnawed off, and her hips kept writhing and rising in a way that made him want to shove her hand out the way, grab hold of her arse and plunge into her body to fuck her to a screaming and shuddering completion.   
  
Before Hermione had the chance to break her wrist with its vigorous movement, Severus yanked the stupid scrap of silk from across her thighs and lowered his head between them, moving so quickly that she never registered his movement until his nose was bumping against her knuckles, trying to move them out of his way. When Hermione felt lank hair brushing against the inside of her thigh, it was enough to make her pull back and try to sit up.  
  
"Severus—what–no—what are you doing?"  
  
"What do you fucking think?" he asked calmly, yanking her closer to him and continuing to bump his nose against her hand the way a dog nuzzled its owner when it wanted something. He finally resorting to opening his mouth and using his lips to capture one of Hermione's sticky fingers, sucking off the slightly salty juices that clung to it.  
  
"Hmm. You really do taste good," Severus murmured, shifting his weight to one side and holding up Hermione's hand to his face. He unabashedly poked out an agile pink tongue and licked at the webbing between each of her fingers. "What a succulent little minge."  
  
"Damn you, I was about to come," Hermione snapped, awkwardly leaning up one elbow and sounding rather put out, even as she was transfixed by the sight and feel of the hot mouth cleaning her hand.  
  
"I'd rather do that part, if you don't mind," Severus replied, licking his lips as he peered intently between her legs. The scent of her arousal was one thing, but the sight of her warm, slick flesh was another.   
  
Hermione made some small sound that made the man between her legs look quizzically up at her.  
  
"Don't tell me you're nearly thirty years old and never had your cunt licked."  
  
"Oh, you great pillock!" Hermione screamed, nudging Severus in the side of his slick black-haired head with her knee. "I am not almost thirty—I've got three more bloody years!"  
  
"I don't think the pressing issue at hand is your age, rather the fact that you've never been kissed here." Severus then brushed the back of his fingers over the short curls covering Hermione's sex, making her thighs tremble in his hold. "What a pity. You know, we really need to address this."  
  
"What we need to address is that dirty mouth of yours!"  
  
Moving frighteningly fast until he was completely over the witch, Severus planted his mouth over Hermione's and kissed her until she was moaning and fisting his hair.  
  
"I've never bothered with niceties before, and don't intend on starting now," his deep voice rumbled into her ear. "Now shut up so I can make you come."  
  
Just as Hermione opened her mouth to protest, Severus shifted back down her body, pausing to linger over her breasts. He cradled both mounds of soft flesh in his large, slender hands, his thumb and forefinger gently plucking and pinching each nipple until they pebbled. Her nipples were then given the same treatment that her fingers had received, and Hermione moaned from it all. She vaguely wondered if Severus Snape was a breast man, because he not only licked and sucked her nipples, but left no stone unturned, actually laving beneath each swell and suckling her entire areola into his mouth.  
  
But he soon proved to be an everything man, or perhaps a Hermione Granger-man, because he licked and sucked everywhere his mouth could reach, as promised, before elegantly sliding down her body until he was back between her thighs.   
  
"Now, where was I?" he murmured, more to Hermione's crotch than to her face. The last thing Hermione had a fleeting vision of was Severus coming to a rest on his stomach while his hands grasped the backs of her thighs to push them up and out.   
  
Her gynaecologist hadn't even had this much of a view, and Hermione almost wanted to feel self-conscious, but at the first touch of a heated tongue swiping up the length of her slit, she found that she really couldn't find a single damn to give.  
  
"Oh gods!" Hermione blurted out, her body roughly jerking as she was unable to keep her hips against the floor. She immediately needed more and wanted to scream when she felt Severus lift his head.  
  
"As wonderful as that is for my ego—thank you, by the way— I would implore you to remember that our wands are at least three times our height right now and on your bedroom floor. Wandless magic is shite and painful to boot when it comes to fixing a broken nose; I speak from experience."  
  
"Sorry."  
  
"It's alright, just thought you ought to know."  
  
"I'll keep it in mind," Hermione promised. "Now...can you keep going? I feel like I'm on hell."  
  
"Gladly."  
  
Severus was truly enthusiastic, burying his nose into the neatly trimmed patch of curls covering her mound and taking a deep whiff of her distinct female musk. Four long fingers curved over her outer labia, giving things a slight rub before using two of them to delicately separate her folds.  
  
It was hard to keep still. On the other hand, Hermione wanted to keep still, purely to make Severus touch her clit, which he was now avoiding. One fingertip circled the sensitive nub before gliding down to slowly press halfway inside her body, allowing it to become coated it with slippery juices before withdrawing it and dipping lower to circle her puckered rosebud.  
  
Heart pounding as she waited for Severus to touch her more aggressively, Hermione let out a shuddering breath when he let go of her thighs to press them back atop the silk scarves. She fervently hoped that he wasn't finished, not when she was on the verge of climax again. Yes, she could use her fingers to get herself off, but his tongue proved to feel a million times better than her own touch.  
  
Hermione's ponderings and near disappointment was short-lived. Severus placed both hands atop her thighs and held them in place, lowering his face once more until his long black hair brushed against her skin. This time he didn't use his fingers to separate her intimate flesh: he used his lips and tongue, probing at her weeping entrance before lapping at her clit with broad, flat licks.  
  
Severus hadn't been being facetious when he told Hermione that she tasted sweet. Licking her fingers clean had been a meagre sample of the goods, but now that he was getting it directly from the source, it would be a miracle if he could remove himself from between her thighs. Judging by her uncontrollable moans and writhing, it was apparent that Hermione had never been on the receiving end of oral, or if she had, that her time most likely would have been better spent with a cup of tea and those ridiculously sweet biscuits she was so fond of.   
  
Severus twisted and curled his tongue inside of her; he flicked it and suckled at her clit, just like he'd done to her perky nipples. Her arousal was thick and continuously leaking onto his tongue, and he outright moaned into her flesh because of it. Had he not been holding her thighs down, he suspected that she definitely would have broken his nose, because the more he moved his tongue against her, the fiercer her limbs trembled.  
  
The silk scarf beneath Hermione's buttocks was now completely drenched and most likely permanently ruined. Severus briefly wondered with macabre amusement if Hermione were to wear that scarf, how one of her friends would look had they caught a whiff of her unique scent when they moved in for a hug.  
  
No, perhaps he would sneak the scarf out when Hermione wasn't looking. So what if it almost resembled stealing a woman's worn knickers? If it made him a pervert, he could live with that. After all, he had been called much worse in his lifetime. Pervert would be a much softer name.  
  
Almost wanting to indulge the witch in a bit more dirty talk, seeing as it had gotten her worked up in the first place, Severus declined, opting to use his mouth for other things at the moment. Still, he had thoroughly enjoyed Hermione's reaction to each of his suggestive remarks.   
  
Oh well, there were other ways.  
  
Such as eye contact...which just now came to mind. Severus had literally been enthralled with slurping and licking Hermione's cunt that he'd closed his eyes. Now he opened them and looked up to see that the still trembling yet strangely quiet witch had propped herself up and was staring fixedly at the mouth and tongue vigorously working her over, her brown eyes glazed over and her features looking almost drunk on passion.  
  
Well, if she wanted a show, who was he to deny?  
  
Shoving both hands beneath Hermione's arse, Severus lifted her slightly, making sure that she was going to get her figurative money's worth.   
  
"It's a shame I can't finger you, although perhaps I will after I make you come the first time. But sweet Circe, girl, your arse feels good in my hands."  
  
That made Hermione murmur some semblance of an expletive while rolling her head back, letting it hang for a moment before lifting it back up to look down at Severus. There was no doubt in his mind that she was seconds away from exploding. Planting a series of soft, suckling kisses right upon the hood of her reddened clitoris, Severus gradually increased the pressure and the length of time of sucking the entire thing between his lips before letting go.  
  
"Oh yes, Severus, yes yes, fuck yes!" Hermione growled, undulating her hips and scrabbling to grasp onto the silk beneath her hands. So much for high-pitched cries; her declarations of ecstasy were as deep and luscious from where her nectar flowed continuously. She was practically humping his face, soaking his chin and lips as she moaned and wriggled with each pass of his tongue.  
  
Squeezing the fleshly globes of Hermione's behind each time she pushed her hips forward, Severus made sure to keep his licking constant and on the same spot, which was becoming more avid with the way she kept moving. His cock was twitching and felt hard enough to poke a hole into the floor, was most likely leaving a wet spot the size of a Galleon on the scarf beneath it, and he wished he had a third hand to reach down and wank until they both came together.   
  
Without meaning to, Severus moaned against her one more time, and combined with the never ending suckling of her clit, plus those long fingers kneading and squeezing her tender arse, Hermione's feral groan turned midway into a loud screech and she bucked her hips hard against his face as her climax hit her.   
  
Her flesh literally throbbed against his tongue, and a gush of juices erupted from her and trickled down his chin and onto the silk.   
  
While her cries might have been tinny sounding to anyone else had they been standing nearby, they were certainly loud enough in that dollhouse, resonating clearly and leaving Severus' ears ringing.  
  
Losing control had made Hermione succumb to the urge to throw her head back, helpless to the intense sensations sweeping over her goose-pimpled body, and she shuddered viciously when Severus continued his relentless devouring.   
  
"Stop! Stop, stop," she finally pleaded when her over-sensitised body could take no more, desperately trying to scoot back from the soft tongue attacking her flesh. "Oh my God."  
  
Severus was loath to stop but did so anyway, especially after he felt Hermione's little fingers digging into his hair and tugging it at the roots. He lingered between her now slackened and shaking thighs, pressing kisses into them while avidly watching as her reddened cunt twitched and pulsed with the aftermath of her orgasm. The witch had gone limp and was practically purring when she let go of his hair, letting her arms fall to her sides before summoning the strength to stretch them both above her head while sighing contentedly.  
  
"Bloody hell," she moaned breathlessly. "I can't feel my toes. Actually, I can't feel my legs."  
  
"Oh, have I done something right?" Severus asked, wincing as he shifted to move up and lay beside Hermione. "Not that I'd planned on being smaller than a Cornish Pixie and in a dollhouse the first time we fucked, but we are doing this in a bed the second round. I can't take much more of this floor shit."  
  
Hermione sniggered as she rolled over into Severus' arms.   
"You are so crass," she murmured, nuzzling her nose against his chest and lightly nipping at the sparse black hair sprinkled among his flat pectorals.   
  
"Fine. The first time I make love to you. Better?"  
  
Severus was still very much hard and leaking onto her thigh, and Hermione reached down to grab his cock. "Once you actually finish properly doing so, yes. Your turn," she continued, letting go briefly to push at Severus' hip and make him lie on his back. "Are you always going to be this compliant? Or just when it comes to me feeding and shagging you?"  
  
"I'd be a fool to protest to either of those things," Severus told her, lightly slapping Hermione's behind when she bent down to press her lips against his.  
  
"You did the first time I offered you lunch," Hermione pointed out, straddling his narrow hips and running her hands over his equally slender chest. "I was only being nice and you yelled at me, if I remember correctly." She was now circling one dark, flat male nipple with her fingertips, watching avidly as it hardened beneath her touch.   
  
"Yes, because you were offering a bowl stew with a side of Gryffindor guilt," Severus replied, hissing when the marauding fingers pinched his nipple. "I didn't want anything from you so long as it was borne out of some twisted sense of obligation. I refuse to choke down anyone's pity. Do things because you want to or not at all. It makes for getting through the skrewt shit much easier."  
  
While divulging this impromptu life lesson, Severus had reached out to cup Hermione's breasts in both hands, cupping them as if to test their weight and jiggling them a bit.  
  
Their friendship hadn't sprouted instantly overnight. Severus had gone on treating Hermione and her friends just like he had when they were beneath his tutelage. Well, he was a bit more tolerant of her, just enough that it had made Hermione bold enough to speak to the usually dour man.  
  
Tolerant was a severe understatement to describe things now; the man was completely acquiescent, almost purring the way she had after coming down from orgasm he'd given her.   
  
Burying her face into the side of Severus' neck and unintentionally giving him a face full of disheveled curls, Hermione proceeded to lay a trail of open-mouthed kisses over the area. She noticed Severus swallowing hard when her lips delved close to the scars that remained from his very close brush with death. Those marks didn't put her off, nor did the others that littered a good amount of his chest, and Hermione continued kissing and nipping her way down Severus' body, enjoying the way his eyes lazily slid shut as his fingers grasped onto her hair and pulled, urging her to continue.  
  
Scars or no scars, Severus was in no position to complain, not with the way Hermione's soft breasts were dragging along the length of his body the further down she moved. It was his turn to bring himself back to earth for a moment and prop his head up to watch as Hermione's pillowy soft lips and shell-pink tongue darted out to touch his pallid skin. She kissed each jutting hipbone, even lightly sinking her teeth into the crease between his pelvis and thigh. All the while her hands were either stroking his chest or toying with his nipples, and the combined effects sent a jolt to his erection which had waned slightly.   
  
"For someone that nearly fainted at first seeing me naked, I commend you on the sudden change," Severus murmured.  
  
"Oh, be quiet," Hermione mumbled against his navel, now running her nose along the thin line of dark hair that was just beneath. "I'm rather...enjoying this. I love touching you."  
  
"I don't take kindly to jokes at my expense."  
  
"Honestly, you git, does it look like I'm joking?" Hermione was now rubbing her hands over his flat abdomen, her lips pressing reverent kisses into each place her fingers had just left. "I'm not the only one that deserves to be kissed from head to toe. I'm just glad you aren't grabbing the back of my head and shoving your cock down my throat."  
  
Part of Severus was tempted to gather a fistful of Hermione's hair and urge her lower so he could fuck her mouth. His balls ached and he longed for relief, even if it came fast, but to watch her kissing and stroking his body with blatant adoration had been worth working to keep his baser urges in check.  
  
"Something tells me you're speaking from previous experience."  
  
Just as Hermione opened her mouth to speak, as she was unsure if it was poor taste to mention previous encounters with a different man while lying naked with another, Severus stopped her.  
  
"That was rhetorical: I don't want to know about you with anyone else. But if you say the word, I can easily get rid of Weasley and Krum. The ginger idiot is lucky I allowed him to keep his hand after that tawdry display of Neanderthal-like behaviour. As for Krum..."  
  
"Severus, are you really going to hex every male that I used to date?"  
  
"Yes, and for the sport of it, I might just curse anyone that dares to gaze upon you for too long."  
  
"Your Slytherin green-eyed monster is showing," Hermione giggled. She had risen to her knees and scooted back on the pile of scarves, and was now gently stroking Severus' slender calves and ankles. "Why do your feet look as if you get pedicures?" she asked, cupping his left heel and propping his foot up. "You're a man and you have prettier feet than me."  
  
"Pretty, eh? Now there's a word I have never heard used to describe me."  
  
"Only pretty for your feet," Hermione explained, lowering his foot back to the floor and trailing her hands up the length of his shins. "Beautiful for the rest, and if you debate me I'll spank your arse till it's rosy."  
  
Staring challengingly up at the wizard, who was smirking at her, Hermione found that he was going to brook no complaint. She then carried on with exploring his body. Now ready for the main course, she slid down to rest on her stomach between his legs, the same way Severus had lain between hers. His cock was hard and heavy and bobbed in front of her face. Hermione wrapped her soft hand around it while the other gently cupped his balls.   
  
There had been a time when she somewhat looked upon oral sex as a dry chore, which she would perform halfheartedly, merely to get out the way. She might have enjoyed being the giver if a certain redhead hadn't tried to choke her while almost ripping her hair from its roots. But now...Severus had actually allowed her to take her time, and the slow writhing of his hips as they tried to match the cadence of her fist tugging the soft skin of his prick back and forth caused a slight pulsation between her legs. She wanted to do this; she wanted to lick and suck any part of him that would make him lose control, just like she had a few minutes ago.  
  
Hermione was quick to engulf the silky head with her mouth, yet slow to draw back her lips and tongue while using a light sucking pressure.   
  
Up until that point, Severus had been watching her, but when Hermione's caresses with her mouth became more fervent, he dropped his head to the floor and quickly lost himself.  
  
It was pointless for him to try and maintain composure, as it was being quickly reduced to crumbles. The little witch was no better; what started out as slow, sensual oral, was now morphing into a round of slick, wet sucking-anything-her-lips-touched. His balls were soaked with saliva and soft fingers gently tugged and massaged them while a fixedly hot mouth intently devoured his shaft.   
  
Severus grit his teeth; he swore, he dug his fingers into those ugly scarves, using every bit of self-control to not grab onto the back of Hermione's head. In some pedantic corner of his mind he wondered why the hell her hair wasn't all over the place, considering the way her head eagerly bobbed and weaved. A quick glimpse from one slightly opened eye told that she had charmed her curls into place, albeit in a slapdash way. She had 'just shagged' hair, even though they were nowhere near being done.  
  
"Oh, gods, girl," Severus ground out when a slim finger insinuated itself between the cleft of his behind, pressing into a sensitive place that other women had usually been ignorant to. A lesser man might have been skittish at having his arsehole touched, but Hermione was sucking him so properly that she could have used her big toe and he wouldn't have protested.  
  
Aware that he was rocking against that finger, Severus nearly sobbed outright when it slipped forward and inside him, smoothly pressing up and into a spot that nearly made him come too soon. She touched him with a suspicious degree of skill, and he was almost tempted to raise his head and ask Hermione how a good little girl like herself knew about that.   
  
Another wizard never occurred to him; Hermione's previous paramours had been nothing but boys in his opinion, boys whom most likely knew nothing of the finer intricacies of sex and merely rutted until they got off. A book was Severus' first thought; he'd always tried to point out that if she wanted the truths in life that she ought to get her head out of a book. Now he was thanking the Fates that she'd read something more fiery than Hogwarts: A History, because he was reaping all the benefits.  
  
Benefits.  
  
What an insipid word to describe the glorious tingles shooting throughout his body.   
  
One minute, Hermione had slowly lowered her mouth as far as she could go onto him. The next, she did something with her finger still firmly insinuated inside him while sliding her tongue up and down, sucking hard on the head of his cock, moaning as if his arousal was feeding hers. Before he realised it, Severus was exploding into a release so extreme it felt as if he were coming forever. At no time did Hermione's mouth leave him, and she literally drained him dry to the point where it felt as if his balls were the sized of two shriveled prunes.  
  
"Fucking hell, Hermione," he wheezed once she finally took pity on him and let go of his softening shaft. His entire frame shuddered as she slowly withdrew her finger, and he looked down to see her giving him an impish smile.   
  
"I take it back: I really think you would be able to talk me into an orgasm, or moan me into one," she announced, moving from between Severus' legs, wiping her face on the back of her hand and laying alongside him. "I think I nearly had another one."  
  
"You think?" he chuckled without opening his eyes. Blindly reaching out, he extended an arm and waited for Hermione to move closer.   
  
"Yes," she replied, resting her head on his shoulder.  
  
"Give me a few minutes to recover and I'll change that for you. Feels like you sucked the life out of me."  
  
"Are you calling me a Dementor?"  
  
"Believe me, if a Dementor could do what you just did, then Azkaban would be brimming over."  
  
Hermione let out a grumble. "I think this is one of the strangest conversations I've ever had. After sex, that is."  
  
"You started it," said Severus, tipping over onto his side and wrapping his other arm around Hermione's waist. "And I don't give a shit about your former pillow talk, although I suspect it was nothing more than a chorus of snores that sounded like a grizzly bear being mauled."  
  
Hermione wriggled backwards into the slim curve of Severus' body, making sure her behind was flush with his cock.   
"Sorry." She closed her eyes, enjoying the feel of Severus' fingers idly caressing the curve of her hip. "More like a dragon," she finished in an exaggerated whisper, which earned her a light slap to her rear.  
  
"Our conversation couldn't be stranger than our surroundings," Severus admitted, burying his lips into the top of Hermione's head.  
  
"Well, the potion served its purpose: no one can find me. No one can hear me, nor can they see me. That is, unless they Apparate into my house, come to my bedroom and get the notion to look inside my dollhouse."  
  
"Did I mention that I also set up anti-Apparation wards?" Severus told her. "Oops."  
  
"Oops, my arse," Hermione muttered, although a grin was plastered on her face. She shifted around until she was facing Severus and tilted her head up to kiss him. "Thank you. Today has been weird yet refreshing. Not us, but our shrunken statures and all."  
  
"Not to mention that you no longer sound like an escaped patient from the Janus Thickey Ward at St. Mungo's. Your hair, on the other hand..."  
  
Hermione paused for a moment, and looked back up at Severus when she felt him shaking with silent laughter. She kicked him before allowing her feet to settle between his.  
  
"Shut up; you like my curls. You pointed out so in the rudest way possible. Remember when I straightened them and you had a fit?"  
  
"All I'd asked was what did you do to your hair. Stop trying to make a liar out of me, woman. And yes, I like your curls. The one on top of your head and the others here."  
  
Severus made his point by sliding one hand between Hermione's legs and dragging them along her damp folds. She keened softly as they brushed against her seam, and inhaled sharply when a lone digit slid inside of her.  
  
"I really meant to have you on all fours for this, but there's always later."  
  
Hermione nearly kicked Severus again when he withdrew his finger, her pleasure much too short-lived. Instead, her told her to be patient while gathering up more scarves behind them and bunching some beneath her head and back. The new position was much more comfortable than lying completely flat, and Hermione sank into the material's slippery folds.   
  
Severus gave no forewarning as he knelt between Hermione's thighs, lightly toying with her clit before smoothly sinking two slim fingers into her heat. Just as he got past the knuckle, Hermione let out a sharp cry and arched her back.  
  
"What a tight, greedy little pussy you have," he whispered, feeling her snug walls clamping down on him. "It feels like it wants to suck my fingers in."  
  
No amount of dirty talk could have turned Hermione on any more than she already was, but it definitely didn't hurt things. Her body had continued humming with pleasure long after moving to lie in Severus' arms, but now he'd reignited it all with a few strokes of his pointer and middle fingers.   
  
"What a good girl you are to get so wet for me. That's right, spread your legs for me, let me see you."  
  
Hermione had literally splayed her thighs wide as they would go, while arching her spine and throwing back her head, exposing the slim column of her neck, baring herself to Severus in every sense of the word. She cried out as he quickly sent her over two times, each orgasm soaking his hand well past the knuckle. Her walls gripped and convulsed around his fingers, to the point where he actually had to put forth a small effort to pull them out.   
  
Hermione was still flying high when Severus settled himself into the cradle of her hips. She came to long enough to fling both arms around his neck, pulling him down for a kiss laced with desperation. Her hands soon moved to his biceps, then his lower back, where she urged him forward. He reached down between them and place the tip of his erection at her entrance yet didn't push forward.  
  
"Take me into you," he whispered against Hermione's lips, teasingly kissing her while slipping both hands beneath her back.  
  
Hermione braced her feet flat on the floor, a feat that was sort of difficult because of their slippery faux-bed. Still she made do, and clutched onto Severus' back while inching her pelvis forward, wriggling and writhing her hips until his cock was partially embedded within her slick, tender flesh. There was an ache present, one that came from a long bout of no sex, and it stopped her from moving too hastily.   
  
The two moaned together as Hermione worked to impale herself inch by tortuous inch onto his cock. It stung as her walls stretched to accommodate the widest part of his shaft, and Hermione paused for a minute before continuing with her agonisingly slow rocking. She could hear Severus breathing hard next to her ear when she was finally able to accept all of him, and his lean frame trembled against her.   
  
Sliding into Hermione's body felt like home; it hugged him in all the right places, and felt as if she had been created with just him in mind, and Severus was tempted to fuck her fast and hard.   
  
There were several factors which made him know long ago why Hermione was a suitable mate for him. The only snag from then until now was that he believed her to be unattainable. However, she had no objections when he laid his claim to her thirty minutes ago by saying that she was his witch. Now that he had her, truly had her, with her body fitting around his like a lock that had only one key made, there was no way he was going to let her go.  
  
"Oh gods...move, Severus...move," Hermione pleaded feverishly, the want evident on her flushed face as the blunt ends of her fingernails dug into his skin.  
  
A plethora of things ran through Severus' mind to say to Hermione: some downright lascivious and others sickeningly sweet, so soppy that he would be embarrassed to utter them. None of them mattered as the ability to speak had completely abandoned him. Hermione wasn't much better off, and their mingled pleasure was reduced to a series of grunting, groaning, and at times incoherent babbling from the trembling witch beneath him.  
  
Severus shifted his hands to Hermione's shoulders and pulled her down to meet his thrusts while slowly dragging and curling his pelvis forward, grinding into her on the instroke to stimulate the bundle of nerves at the top of her sex. The witch had lost her battle with keeping her feet on the floor and lifted her knees to Severus' side, rocking her hips to keep up with him. She was barely able to get her lips around the multiple S's in his name while wordlessly begging him for more.   
  
It took Severus mere seconds to yank Hermione from the mound of scarves to lie flat on her back, gathering up more to place beneath her hips. He immediately covered her body with his, bracing his hands on either side of her head and burying himself with her heat deeply as possible. Hermione cried out sharply at the swift moment and new angle, but welcomed Severus' more fevered thrusting just as she had received his slower cadence. Enveloping him with arms and legs, she pushed back to meet his every thrust, nearly bereft because she knew that the indescribable feel of him moving within her couldn't last forever.  
  
"Severus," she moaned, only able to properly say his name that one time. "I-I'm—"  
  
Hermione's face was contorted with pleasure, and she had wrapped herself around him so tightly that she nearly felt as if she really were a part of him. She trembled fiercely enough that it rocked him, yet did not hinder him from plunging into her.  
  
"That's it, sweet girl," he coaxed in a husky voice, pausing to brush his lips against Hermione's. "Let go for me, I want to feel you come."  
  
Perhaps it was that final deep thrust, aimed right at the tender spot in the centre of her body that instantly sent Hermione over. Maybe it was the sweet words whispered in Severus' deep voice that was tinged with a wealth of lust that set her off. Or it could have been a combination of the two, combined with the fact that she finally had the one person she'd wanted most but had been too afraid to admit, as well as the knowledge that she actually had him, and in the most physically intimate way possible.  
  
Without a doubt it was all of the above, but for now Hermione didn't dwell on it for she was too enthralled with having one of the most intense orgasms she'd ever experienced. Completely oblivious to everything except the feel of his cock rubbing and prodding into her over-sensitised body, she never registered the single tear leaking from the corner of her right eye, nor that she was screaming loudly enough to the point where she would be hoarse later on. Even though her face was inches from Severus', her eyes were wide yet unseeing, the blood rushing like water in her ears, and she barely heard his own roar of completion that was nearly loud as hers.  
  
Severus' cock twitched with its last legs of release. Although he was not yet ready to move from the soft warmth of Hermione's body, he continued thrusting unevenly against her. Only when he realised that he could no longer feel his legs and was in danger of crushing the young woman beneath him, did he pull out her and drag himself to the side.   
  
The two collapsed into a well-sated heap on the well-ruined silk, lying in a tangle of limbs while the air cooled their sweat-dampened skin.  
  
"Damn, I'm in need of a fag," was the first coherent thought that popped to Severus' mind ten minutes later. "I wonder if there are any miniature ones lying about in this dollhouse."  
  
Hermione gave a tired sort of laugh and lazily shifted next to him.  
  
"I didn't know you smoked."  
  
"I don't, rather, I used to a long time ago. But after this"—he paused to clasp one hand over her languidly throbbing sex—"I damn well better start again."  
  
"You'd better not," Hermione reprimanded softly. "I don't want my house smelling like cigarette."  
  
"With you for one day and already you're bossing me around."  
  
"That's right, you reprobate. Someone has to look after you."  
  
"And whose job is it to look after you?"  
  
"Yours, and don't pretend like you never stopped."  
  
A faint red appeared on Severus' cheeks, but Hermione was too busy with sleepily curling up into his side to notice.  
  
"Not that I want to move, but if this potion wears off while we're asleep...let's just say I'm not all that fond of splinters in my arse."  
  
Hermione exhaled noisily.   
  
"OK. I guess it's back to my bedroom floor because I'll probably crack my head open trying to scale a bedpost," she mumbled.  
  
After mustering enough fortitude to move from the semi-comfort of the pile of scarves in the dollhouse (although Hermione insisted that they bring a few with them, as her carpet wasn't all that soft) the two clambered out and move to the centre of the bedroom. Only three of the scarves had made it out of their fervent lovemaking undamaged, and they wrapped themselves in two of them, wadding up the last one to use as a pillow.  
  
They slept through their retransformation. Hermione only stirred awake when she heard Severus grumbling about something being stuck between his arse cheeks. When he reached behind him to pluck out the length of silk, she exploded into hysterical laughter.  
  
"Laugh now, but I don't think you'll ever be able to wear these again."  
  
"So what?" Hermione giggled. "I'll keep them as mementos of this unforgettable afternoon. Now let's get up. I need to put my roaring snake to bed."  
  
"Roaring snake? I'll show you roaring snake."  
  
Unceremoniously gathering Hermione up into his arms and dumping her on the bed—after pausing to neatly move an abandoned pile of books from the mattress and onto the nightstand, as she'd yelled when he was ready to kick them off—Severus kissed and caressed the squealing witch until she begged for mercy. Eventually she ended up being pinned face down to the mattress by dint of one slender hand at the small of her back, with Severus pounding into her and making her come so hard that she forgot her name.   
  
Severus never got his cigarette after that, but turns out that Hermione's bed was a much softer and more inviting place than the hard floor of a dollhouse. His knees also agreed with him. 


End file.
